Modelling

Our modelling experts offer the full range of specialist services for a wide range of sectors and markets, both in the UK and internationally. We pride ourselves on providing world-leading modelling capabilities, through the latest techniques, technology and tools.

As an internationally renowned centre of marine science, Cefas is uniquely positioned to provide you with ecosystem modelling services relating to marine food-webs, biodiversity and fishing. We champion the ‘ecosystem approach to management’ (EAM), which aims to support the sustainable use of marine resources, without causing long-term deterioration of ecosystem goods and services. This aspiration is also embodied in our research, which seeks to reveal how marine ecosystems respond to human and environmental change.

Our experts are recognised leaders in applied and theoretical ecosystem modelling, with experience spanning a broad range of sectors around the globe – including fisheries and conservation organisations as well as energy sector customers in oil, gas and renewables.

Alongside tried and tested modelling tools, we have the capacity to develop bespoke modelling applications tailored to your specific needs. Our experienced modellers also work at the vanguard of application and development of the most used food-web model worldwide, Ecopath with Ecosim.

Cefas’ research on applied ecosystem modelling is used in the development of ecosystem indicators for managing 'Good Environmental Status' of marine food-webs and in supporting the development of multi-species fishery management plans consistent with an ecosystem approach.

We work closely with our customers and partners in fisheries, climate change science, spatial planning (e.g. in relation to marine protected areas) and the energy sector to provide comprehensive ecosystem impact assessments. Our experts have been pioneers in developing standards for quality assurance in food-web ecosystem modelling.

For more information about how our ecosystem modelling services can support your business or organisation, please contact our team of experts today.

Cefas is the UK’s largest and most diverse aquatic science centre and has a strong international reputation. Our epidemiology team has an established track record in disease and risk modelling.

We work with the UK government bodies such as Defra and the Food Standards Agency, as well as with the European Union, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to advise on freshwater and marine epidemiology. Our team also increasingly provides services to commercial companies and foreign governments.

Our scientists have specialist expertise in a range of risk modelling approaches, including pathway analysis to assess routes of the introduction for diseases and non-native species, network modelling to forecast the spread of diseases and scenario tree modelling for diseases surveillance. We also employ economic modelling to assess the economic impact of disease incursions.

Well-established differential equation modelling techniques allow us to assess how endemic diseases, such as koi herpesvirus, may spread between fishery sites. We also apply risk models to determine the role of anglers in spreading disease. Other models simulate the spread of an introduced viral disease between farms and rivers.

The results of our epidemiology modelling have been used to define outbreak scenarios and develop disease eradication programmes. Our risk models have also supported the design of surveillance programmes that rank fish farms based on the risk of disease introduction and spread. Other models map the likelihood of disease establishment based on the distribution of susceptible species and water temperature profiles.

For more information about our epidemiological risk modelling and how we can support your organisation, please contact our team of experts today.

Cefas is uniquely positioned to provide you with a cost-effective fisheries and ecosystem modelling service.

As an internationally recognised leader of marine fisheries science, fisheries management is at the heart of our work. Cefas has defined the process of collecting, storing, managing, analysing and modelling fisheries data, which has been adopted across the EU and beyond.

Whether you work in the fishing industry, the energy sector, research or governance, your organisation can benefit from Cefas’ unique modelling and advice capability.

Our work has a global application and covers everything from physical monitoring processes to predicting behavioural response to resource management measures. It is fully integrated within a multidisciplinary framework, supported by a team of around forty-five modellers with a broad skills-base, working to address physical, chemical, biological, social and economic problems using a wide range of techniques, approaches, hardware and software.

Cefas’ experts have developed scientifically robust methods, including numerical and statistical modelling techniques to assess the state of stocks, as well as the impact of fishing fleets on species and the ecosystems that support them.

Our work has played an important role in the development and application of community and ecosystem modelling approaches to address strategic research issues on the impacts of fishing and environmental change on marine ecosystems. Research funded nationally and by the EU also identifies and evaluates the ecological and fishery trade-offs of management strategies.

As well as offering extensive modelling and advice services, Cefas can also help your organisation to respond proactively to the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy and to reduce potentially negative impacts.

To find out more about how our experts can help you and your organisation, please contact us today.

Numerical modelling at Cefas has grown strongly during the last fifteen years and provides a means to combine and enhance scientific output across all of our divisions.

We use high performance computing techniques for many of our model systems and our GIS specialists provide visual interpretation of results and forecasts. Cefas holds the most comprehensive observational data and we provide fully validated model results. We pride ourselves on providing modelling solutions across a wide range of marine markets, from coast to shelf, surface to bed and working to integrate the biology, chemistry and physics of the ocean in our models.

Examples of our work include:

modelling food-web and production for sustainable fisheries

linking lower and upper trophic level models

building fully baroclinic ocean circulation and biogeochemical models of the North European shelf sea